Simulating from the binomial and the normal
In this exercise you'll see for yourself whether the normal is a reasonable approximation to the binomial by simulating large samples from the binomial distribution and its normal approximation and comparing their histograms.
This exercise is part of the course
Foundations of Probability in R
Exercise instructions
- Generate 100,000 draws from the Binomial(1000, .2) distribution. Save this as
binom_sample. - Generate 100,000 draws from the normal distribution that approximates this binomial distribution, using the
rnorm()function. (Remember thatrnorm()takes the mean and the standard deviation, which is the square root of the variance). Save this asnormal_sample. - Compare the two distributions with the
compare_histograms()function. (Remember that this takes two arguments: the first and second vectors to compare).
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Draw a random sample of 100,000 from the Binomial(1000, .2) distribution
binom_sample <-
# Draw a random sample of 100,000 from the normal approximation
normal_sample <-
# Compare the two distributions with the compare_histograms function